BackgroundIndices predictive of adolescent central obesity include waist circumference (WC), waist-to-hip ratio (WHR) and waist-to-height ratio (WHtR). Such reference data are lacking for Greek adolescents. The aim of this study was to develop age- and gender-specific WC, WHR and WHtR smoothed reference percentiles for abdominal obesity among Greek adolescents aged 12–17 years, to investigate possible obesity cut-offs of WHR and WHtR and to compare WC percentiles to other adolescent populations.MethodsA representative sample of 1610 high school adolescents (42.2% boys, 57.8% girls; mean age ± sd 14.4 ± 1.72 years) participated in this cross-sectional study in Attica, Greece, in 2013. Weight, height, body mass index (BMI), WC, hip circumference (HC), WHR and WHtR were measured and percentiles were calculated using the LMS method. The relation between WHR, WHtR and general obesity, as defined by the International Obesity Task Force, was investigated with receiver operating characteristic (ROC) analysis. The discriminating power of WHR and WHtR was expressed as area under the curve (AUC). Greek adolescents’ WC measurements at the 50th and 90th percentile were compared with their counterparts’ smoothed percentiles from Norway, Turkey, Poland, South India, Germany and Kuwait.ResultsBoys had significantly higher mean in all measures than girls, except for BMI where there was no statistical difference in terms of gender. BMI, WC and HC showed an increasing trend with age. WC leveled off in both genders at the age of 17 years. WHR and WHtR showed a continuous decrease with advancing age. WHtR was a better predictor for general obesity in both boys and girls (AUC 95% CI 0.945-0.992) than the WHR (AUC 95% CI 0.758-0.870); the WHtR cut-off of 0.5 had sensitivity 91% and specificity 95% for both genders and all age groups combined. International comparisons showed that Greek adolescents had relatively high levels of abdominal obesity in early-middle adolescence but this did not persist at the age of 17 years.ConclusionsThese reference percentile curves could be used provisionally for early detection of abdominal obesity in Greek adolescents aged 12–17 years; WHtR of 0.5 could also be used as a threshold for obesity in this age group.
Background Data regarding the association of antibody levels elicited after immunization with the BNT162b2 mRNA Covid-19 vaccine with epidemiological and clinical parameters are limited. Methods We prospectively measured the total (TAbs-RBD) and the neutralizing antibodies (NAbs-RBD) against the receptor binding domain (RBD) of SARS-CoV-2 spike protein in a cohort of 268 Healthcare workers before immunization, 20 days after the 1 st dose and 30 days after the 2 nd dose of the BNT162b2 vaccine. A statistical analysis for possible association of antibodies’ levels with epidemiological and clinical parameters was performed. Results The mean age (±SD) of the participants was 45.45 years (± 11.93) (range: 24-70 years) and 211 (79.9%) were females. Statistically significant differences were detected regarding both TAbs-RBD and NAbs-RBD between the first and second doses of the vaccine (P<0.001). The median (IQR) percentage (%) of NAbs-RBD after the 1 st dose was 51.07% (31.60%) and after the 2 nd dose 95.31% (3.70%) (P<0.001).The correlation between the TAbs-RBD and NAbs-RBD was after the 1 st dose, Spearman’s, rho: 0.861 ( P <0.001) and after the 2 nd dose rho: 0.989 ( P <0.001). Twenty days after the 1 st dose, 56/264 (21.2%) of the participants did not have detectable NAbs-RBD, while one month after the 2 nd dose all of them had detectable NAbs-RBD. After the 2 nd vaccine dose, a statistically significant negative association of TAbs-RBD was detected for age (P<0.001), smoking ( P =0.011), and immunosuppressive medications (P<0.001), while a positive association was detected for BMI (P=0.004) and systemic adverse events after immunization (P=0.001). Conclusion A significant correlation of TAbs-RBD and NAbs-RBD was detected after both vaccine doses. Older age, smoking, and immunosuppressive medications negatively affected the final antibody level after SARS-CoV-2 immunization. Our findings emphasize the significance of the 2 nd vaccine dose especially in the older age groups.
Diabetes is a group of metabolic disorders characterized by elevated levels of blood glucose which leads over time to serious complications and significant morbidity and mortality worldwide. Self-management tasks in diabetes may be quite challenging because of lack of training, difficulties in sustaining lifestyle modifications, and limited access to specialized healthcare. Nowadays, the evolution of mobile technology provides a large number of health-related smartphone applications (apps), aiming to increase the self-management skills of the patient in chronic diseases, to facilitate the communication between the patient and healthcare providers, and to increase also the patient's compliance with the treatment. In the field of diabetes there are also many diabetesrelated mobile apps mainly focusing on selfmanagement of diabetes, lifestyle modification, and medication adherence motivation. The aim of this paper is to review the most important diabetes-related mobile smartphone applications, including only those supported by prospective randomized controlled trials.
Increased adherence to MD was associated with decreased WC, indicating a potential of multicomponent-multilevel school-based interventions to combat adolescent abdominal obesity.
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